The Nature of Heroes
by heechul
Summary: You are no Cho Chang or Padma or Parvati Patil or Ginny Weasley. You are Pansy Parkinson, and you are never going to be good, or beautiful, or a hero. Five truths about Pansy Parkinson.


1.

You are no Cho Chang or Padma or Parvati Patil or Ginny Weasley. You are Pansy Parkinson. Blaise is never going to count you on his fingers, nor would he have ever given you a second glance had your blood not dictated him to. Draco is never going to touch you with anything more than polite formality, nor would've sought you out had politics and lottery of birth not drawn you a path you could never have sketched for yourself otherwise.

You are Pansy Parkinson. You felt so proud and pretty for the first time, going to the Yule Ball on Draco's arm, but then you saw how Draco had paused to look at Hermione Granger and you slowly, methodically, burned your beautiful new dress robes later that night with those two brief seconds in mind because you had seen the truth: Hermione Granger, for all that her blood made her, had always, at least, had that _potential_ for beauty that you have never had and will never, ever have. That Hermione Granger could turn Draco's head, unwilling as the action was, while you, who has wanted nothing but Draco's undivided attention for the past four years, could never, short of a miracle.

You are Pansy Parkinson and you laughed at Cho when she walked by with Potter; you let Cedric Diggory's name fall from your lips like your heart hasn't been permanently between your teeth ever since you saw Potter fall out of the maze and you felt, for the first time, trepidation at what your blood marked you for. You are Pansy Parkinson and you mocked Cho for her taste but in your fifteen-year-old heart, you knew that you would have been satisfied even if it was only Harry Potter who had looked twice and you, Pansy Parkinson, are never going to be beautiful.

2.

You come home to a mother slowly rounding the bend of insanity, and you can see for yourself the ugly side of purity, years of in-breeding culminating in the imbalance in chemicals in your mother's mind. You come home to the Parkinson family tree, embroidered in gold and silver and you trace the familiar route to the Malfoy name. Your mother watches your finger's path with colorless eyes and you wonder wildly if maybe that which ails your mother lies dormant in you as well, just waiting for a chance to strike. You imagine possible future children, prized for the blood that runs through their bodies but useless in every way; you imagine happiness, as foreign a concept that may be, and how fitting it would be that it was your blood that mitigated it.

You also come home to a family tree with a patch in the left side suspiciously blank, and you don't need your mother to tell you about how the Weasleys, the Potters, Andromeda and Sirius Black once occupied the area the Malfoy branch is now trying to spread out into. The Weasley family is where even blood, which you had always thought foolproof, had failed, and you don't need to fake the curl in your lip whenever you think about their easy association with the likes of Mudbloods and the fascination with Muggles.

What you can't help is the nagging curiosity, the somewhat disgusted horror that you can't help but feel when you think about the gigantic Weasley family. There must've been good blood _somewhere_, but wherever it is, it is well and buried under sickening ideals of love and trust. Most pureblood families produce one or two children each, for fear that too many children dilutes the purity of blood (Andromeda Black, for one, though you can't help but think that perhaps it is because Bellatrix received enough pureblood mania for the both of them) and because most marriages are made for convenience and politics, not love. Then again, your mother believes God lives in your attic and is the Dark Lord's petulant younger brother, and all the blood thrumming through your veins couldn't change that.

3.

For all of Hermione Granger's idealized talk of equality and unity, she has never given you the credit you deserve. So you are not the cleverest witch in your year, so you never will be. So the Sorting Hat would never have considered Ravenclaw for you, so you are hopeless at Potions and Transfiguration. That does not justify, you think, the way she looks at you, almost pityingly, as if Slytherin were full of not only the pureblood maniacs, but the inbred imbeciles as well (you think of your mother and for a second, your blood runs cold).

"– complete _cow_," you had heard Hermione Granger say savagely as you pass by the compartment she is in on your way back to yours and you remember thinking, _stupid, stupid girl_. What does she know about the Outstanding O.W.L.s you later received in Care of Magical Creatures and History of Magic? What does she know but the fact that you are a Slytherin, that you dare to take the side of a boy you have known your entire life, that you dare believe what you have been told your entire life?

You had received your shiny Prefects badge in the mail and it had been the proudest day of your young life. Your mother brushed your hair until it glowed and called you _darling_ and you thought about how Professor Binns actually knows your name and it had been the proudest day of your young life. You remember shrieking in delight when Draco owled you with similar good news, you remember polishing each other's carefully before pinning it on the other and walking into the prefects' compartment together, chests thrown out proudly, and even the surprised looks on Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley's faces couldn't deter you.

You remember feeling the delicious weight of responsibility and authority given to you on your shoulders; you remember the jubilation, the pride, the wild grin Draco had shot at you, the crushing, bitter disappointment when you heard the familiar contempt in Hermione Granger's voice because there are some things that, no matter what, you just can't change.

4.

Your mother is not a Death Eater, your father, bless his soul, had not been a Death Eater, and you will not be a Death Eater. Purebloods are not divided into Death Eaters and blood traitors: a lesson, you think, Harry Potter and his friends could very well take the time to learn.

Your lineage and the company you keep mark you just as well as a Dark Mark would, the skull and snake a constant presence over your head; your mind, your body, your very presence tainted by the darkness the Dark Lord represents though you and your family belong to that camp that does not care very much if the Dark Lord rises to power or not, so long as you have the standing you have always had. Even the Dark Lord, even Voldemort, when it comes down to it, is a half blood – the kind of person he has spent his entire career trying to eradicate, and even Salazar Slytherin's blood couldn't change the other half running through his veins.

The bottom line: you are not evil. Draco is not evil. Blaise is not evil. Vincent and Gregory are far, far cries from evil. You don't think that there is a single soul in Slytherin house who could really be called evil but there are some stigmas hard to get rid of, especially when there is one man out there ruining it for you all.

5.

There is only one secret you will take to your grave.

It is only a few quick images, twenty seconds of your short, short life. You with the Sorting Hat. You with the Sorting Hat slipping over your forehead, sitting on that stool in the Great Hall with everyone as witness, and the Sorting Hat hissing these words into your ear: _Quite a lot of bravery in your head, Parkinson, are you sure Gryffindor won't do? Plenty of work ethic, hidden kindness; how about Hufflepuff? No? Well, if you're sure, better be –_


End file.
